Anniversary Tokens - Combined Arms and Venom: Heroic

IceIX

stephen43084 wrote:

Im getting seasick seeing you jump on and off forum tonight, so I'll ask again on case you missed.

I'm assuming we'll get a breakdown of GT's abilities before the LR so we can gossip... Errrr.... Strategize. Thursdayish?

More likely that the LRs will start and I'll do a break down then. Her in-game reveal stats and the like are supposed to be Sooper Sekret.

Pwuz_

via Imgflip Meme Maker

Carnage_78

IceIX...

How complicated would it be to simply award the correct amount of anniversary tokens to each player at the end of each event that was problematic (Venom Heroic & Combined Arms)?

i.e. If I got to more than 15,000 in the Venom Heroic then I get awarded 2 anniversary tokens at the end of the event in addition to whatever placement reward I've earned.

Unknown

Ice, must be Stupid question of the day, but this is really Lady Thor who is Featured in the LRs ?

But the LRs will get a rotation of usual characters or Lady Thor only or a mix of both ?

I'm sorry if that was explained before, but reading all your current posts, it's not clear to me.

Thank you for clearing this up.

dr tinykittylove

PPPlaya wrote:

I don't really mind missing the 10 pack. I think I can manage enough for the Dino cover(even though mine is at 0/1/4 already)

I'd just like to point out that the treshold was chosen very weirdly. In the regular season I overshot by at least 1000 points. I assume you multiple pvp scores by the amount of PvPs to get a sense of a reasonable final progression reward. It's strange seeing you arrive at the conclusion that 1000 per PvP is reasonable.
Maybe Dino was originally the final reward and you only added extra stuff as a goodie for people who do exceptionally well. It's all fine, but I wanted to point out the discrepancy.

Exactly. After overshooting progressions in the last 4 seasons, it's very demotivational to realise that I won't be hitting this one without a lot of luck and expenditure shield-hopping.

I do still need gsbw pink and rags green, but the end time for venom means I'm out of the running for Cap blue as well, and who knows how the combined arms ranking scores will cap out for top 25 this time.

Added to the mess with the current events, I'm not even feeling much desire to grind for more venom heroic and combined arms tokens.

Jathro

On the plus side, nearly any reward would be better than the normal Lightning Round token. So be happy that you get something other than those.

Spencer75

pmorcs wrote:

Completely amazed. Do not compare your normal LR experience -- which has a single bracket with every participating MPQ player -- with an eensie, weensie 20-person bracket. This is unprecedented, and I daresay if you're coherent enough to log into the forums you should have a darn tootin' chance of coming in first in most of them.

20 people!

Exactly...these are 20 person brackets...I don't think these dummies realize how small that is

Anyone trying is probably gonna get top 5

Players who regularly finishe in the top 25% of their pvps will be in great shape.

Unknown

I'm curious and want to ask the people who were saying "The LRs were going to give Anniversary tokens as placement rewards anyway; the devs' only compensation for the missing Anniversary tokens was to add the 500 point progression reward, which is almost impossible to achieve." Now that IceIX has said that the original plan was to reward only heroic tokens for placement in LRs but they changed it to Anniversary tokens to make up for the error, do you think this is a satisfactory compensation?

I for one am excited for the LRs mainly for the double ISO, and I'm hoping to get placed in a lucky 20-person bracket for placement rewards.

Pylgrim

I see two sides in this discussion. On one side, the hardcore players, those used to place and progress well in LRs celebrating that now they can effortlessly earn up to a literal hundred and something Anniversary tokens in exchange from the 4 "lost" from the botched current events and scoffing at all the "whiners" that don't understand how this is a positive outcome. On the other hand, we have the majority of people, who will be lucky to get one or two tokens out of some gruelling, health-pack-exhausting effort that is going to be placing top or progressing to 500 points in a single LR.

Ben Grimm wrote:

Everyone convinced they can't place in lightning rounds:

Queue up the seed teams at the beginning. Don't attack any of them until there's about 2 minutes left. Pick out the easiest one; you should be able to beat it in 30 seconds (Thor might drag this out, depending on how many hit points she has, but you;ll get a sense for that quickly).

Once you get the hang of this, you'll get top five in a lightning round at least 25% of the time if normal odds follow. A bunch of people will likely do this, so new brackets will be opening with five seconds left.

I'm sceptic that you can do this with a transitioning rooster, but I'll give it a go. Thanks for the advice.

Unknown

OK, I went through the thread reading mainly red and high rep posts.

I want to say that I appreciate the fact that you understand the mistake that was done.

I like that we have Anniversary Tokens in the 500 pts progression in LRs. Although I am a 2* roster still transitioning, it is nice to know that there will be better rewards in this LRs. I can't say I am not disappointed that I lost 3 of them from progression in the last 2 events though, because I still put my effort in those events hoping for those better anniversary rewards.

I do not know how the rewards will play out in these LRs. I really appreciate that you take a new approach with the 20 brackets. I want to see how this plays out and if some casual players (like me) can take advantage of this. Don't get me wrong, I am not a leech, I just have work and married life to deal with every day, so casual is all I can do most of the times.

Although I feel like the top progression rewards are still for the big sharks and not for the common player, this has been the case all along and I have made peace with it. Progression is slow and some times will hurt, but we all get there at some point because that is the only direction we are headed in.

I want to end this with one question then. Being that you said there will be 20 brackets in these LRs, isn't that going to make players attack each other 2-3 times every 5 minutes? Maybe this is part of the plan so that no one can go too far ahead with points and everyone is more or less at the same levels. I am concerned that this will split the rewards by just 1-2 pts difference and if 2-3 max rosters fall in a bracket with transitioning players, they will have a huge advantage.

mohio

Okin107 wrote:

I want to end this with one question then. Being that you said there will be 20 brackets in these LRs, isn't that going to make players attack each other 2-3 times every 5 minutes? Maybe this is part of the plan so that no one can go too far ahead with points and everyone is more or less at the same levels. I am concerned that this will split the rewards by just 1-2 pts difference and if 2-3 max rosters fall in a bracket with transitioning players, they will have a huge advantage.

20-person brackets does not mean you can only fight those 20 people. Just like every other pvp event you will be able to be matched up against anyone provided they meet the game's criteria for MMR, points, etc. the reason they anticipate 500 will be more reachable is that participation will be higher and that will increase points in the pool. Especially at low point totals as this even a small increase in points trickles up (and down) since players don't lose the amount that is gained by the attackers.

Unknown

mohio wrote:

Okin107 wrote:

20-person brackets does not mean you can only fight those 20 people. Just like every other pvp event you will be able to be matched up against anyone provided they meet the game's criteria for MMR, points, etc. the reason they anticipate 500 will be more reachable is that participation will be higher and that will increase points in the pool. Especially at low point totals as this even a small increase in points trickles up (and down) since players don't lose the amount that is gained by the attackers.

You are right. I didn't know that you fight outside of your own bracket. You only compete in your bracket while you fight with everyone. Now that I learned it, I wonder why MMR is so broken when there are so many people with similar roster with yours out there to fight with.

Jathro

Why not simply add the missing anniversary tokens to each tier of alliance rewards? No matter where your alliance places, you'd get the tokens.

And yes, I'm aware there are still people without an alliance. But they're only hurting themselves at this point...

over_clocked

Still reading the thread but wanted to chime in.

Firstly, I want to thank Ice for good news!

Secondly, it was a major kitty-up and we all know it.
But just giving out every player an anniversary token for each one 'lost' in Combined Arms and Heroic Venom is NOT cutting it.
I firmly believe that more than 1/4 of the playerbase were not going to get all 4 tokens anyway.
900 PvP is kinda hard/impossible for 90-95% players. Even 300 PvP and 15k PvE can be too much for many players especially those stuck with bad MMR/scaling/unplayable roster for the Heroic.
This is not an ideal soultion but we were not getting anything guaranteed in the first place - if players lost some covers or HP/ISO, that would be restored to them, as it happened before.
Most people should jump on LRs anyway as soon as those start since double ISO means an easy 2000-10000 ISO just for leisure play in a single round, and hardcore people can easily walk away with 16000-17000 (measured as of last week where I earned 500+ points and earned some 8,5k ISO in one round). Everyone should jump in, whatever roster/MMR you have. ISO > any possible tokens. But even then, 1/4 of all LR players getting anniversary tokens sounds very, very good. In the end more tokens could be given out than was intended originally. I admit that's the optimistic approach that assumes higher than ever LR participation and more 500 pointers than ever, too.
From my experience, losing seed teams happens sometimes even if you try to join ASAP. But most of the time, me and my high MMR (haven't tanked in ages) are able to get to 220-320 (!) exclusively on seed teams. And you don't need to use your best characters to beat seed teams Except Batt1e_Ange1, she's vicious. But then again she runs mBW and cStorm who are soft targets.

I hope all forumites realize how much of an advantage they really possess over the entire playerbase. 20 man brackets are your oyster, even if you hate PvP and are all about how two measly PvE tokens were oh so much better. High MMR and you're too lazy/busy to tank? Open a round ASAP, don't join it, save all the juicy seed teams for the last 20-40 minutes, depending on your roster. Bam, easy t5 or better.

over_clocked

To put it another way, previously we were guaranteed an opportunity to earn _4_ chances at nifty prizes. And now we are guaranteed an opportunity to win SO much more chances!
I don't even.
There goes my anniversary bracket placement!
You, anniversary bracket, you can kiss my shiny metal bass!



I was hoping to maybe place t25 in the end but now I can happily ignore that and only work for a good alliance finish, since I sure don't need that many Dinos (mine is already 1/2/5).

I encourage every 2* player or transitioner that is not a perpetually unpleasable person to boast how many tokens they were able to earn by beating Pyromantic and ChopStuck for 2 days. You will have my eternal gratitude.

CrookedKnight

A stray thought: I understand why you can't retroactively award progression prizes for thresholds we've already passed, but why not just double the progression tokens for the final leg of anniversary week?

Raffoon

IceIX wrote:

Grizzlegom wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Not the case, but since it seems to suddenly have become the latest conspiracy theory, I figure I'll shut it down. The answer is actually simpler. The original one was the only token that isn't a Standard one or tied to a specific Event (since that would tie Thor into an unrelated one). Only really one choice there.

If I follow correctly, the original placement reward was going to be a new token that had Thor in it and that was then changed to Anniversary tokens?

Narp. Thor is first going to be given as a prize for Season VII.
Original rewards would have been Heroics. Hence the only tokens that aren't Standards or Event tokens.

Edit: Looking at the other post, I apologize for my vagueness. I was trying to be all like Socrates with the answers as questions and failed miserably. Should have just directly clarified.

This is just silly. Given that the combined arms/venom tokens were supposed to be anniversary tokens, that would mean that every heroic/event specific token all week long was supposed to be an anniversary token, except for the lightning round placements? Wouldn't common sense dictate that the lightning round placements would also have originally been anniversary tokens?


Hey son, sorry I didn't give you breakfast. To make up for it, you can have lunch though.

But Dad, wasn't I getting lunch before? Based on the communication you've had with me in the past and your pattern of feeding me all week long, it seemed pretty given that I'd be getting lunch.

Nononono! You weren't getting lunch before! Surprise! Now you get lunch!


Any positive here is completely offset by the facts that:
-We've now learned that the developers are more stingy than we originally thought, and were planning to give us a lump of coal for the final lightning rounds.
-Only 25% of the players are going to get these new rewards
-The play schedule required to place well/progress in Lightning Rounds is far more restrictive than getting 300 PVP/15000 PVE

Have you never watched customer service 101 Devs? It's simple. Please people. Give people what they want and MORE and they'll keep coming back and tell all their friends. GIVE EM THE PICKLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISJ1V8vBiiI

SunCrusher

Locked, do you think that more than likely, we ought to all be able to place decently well at some point or another to haul in some extra tokens via LRs (maybe more than we would otherwise) even though it seems (you know, from past experiences with MMRs and death brackets etc) rather daunting?

I'm trying to be (cautiously) optimistic about it myself though past experiences make me admittedly nervous.

I personally like a mix of stability and excitement but tend towards caution; PvE rewards for me tend to be a little more stable and predictable while PvPs have been more unpredictable and so I haven't enjoyed PvP as much on a whole as a player who's deep in transition land.

(If I somehow misread your posts, ignore this post and excuse me for not making sense; I'm on pain meds and pain meds do funny things sometimes.)

over_clocked

SunCrusher wrote:

Locked, do you think that more than likely, we ought to all be able to place decently well at some point or another to haul in some extra tokens via LRs (maybe more than we would otherwise) even though it seems (you know, from past experiences with MMRs and death brackets etc) rather daunting?

I'm trying to be (cautiously) optimistic about it myself though past experiences make me admittedly nervous.

I personally like a mix of stability and excitement but tend towards caution; PvE rewards for me tend to be a little more stable and predictable while PvPs have been more unpredictable and so I haven't enjoyed PvP as much on a whole as a player who's deep in transition land.

(If I somehow misread your posts, ignore this post and excuse me for not making sense; I'm on pain meds and pain meds do funny things sometimes.)

It's all but guaranteed that if you play more than 1 round you will get a bracket where you place t5 easily. Provided you play actively, of course. Not sure how well the 'beat 2 seed teams at the -5 min mark' thing is going to work.

Unknown

Raffoon wrote:

-Only 25% of the players are going to get these new rewards

per round. Not only 25% overall, 25% per round. There will be 24 rounds, the average person should be able to participate in 6-8 of them at a minimum. Given that they're bleeding over onto the weekend, probably more like 10-12 or more for a lot of us.